Can I Become a Country Boy?

 

“Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” John Denver used to sing.

How about a Suburban Boy?

 

 Remember the movie “American Graffiti,” about kids in the ‘50s and ‘60s in California? That was my era: Drive-In restaurants and movies, dragging on main streets, cars everywhere. Cul-de-sacs and tract housing. Before shopping malls were so popular across the country.

 

So it was culture shock when I came to Southside Virginia to see Pickett’s ancestral home in 1981. Bugs everywhere.
“I’m sweating—ewww!”  So sticky! People drive their cars on lawns? We never did that in California, where it is dry all summer.

 

On a Fourth of July, the next-door neighbor here came out and fired his shotgun into the air three times. I wanted to jump out of my sneakers! When you hear that sound in the city, it means a murder has taken place.

 

And deer season? I wear bright clothes and sing loudly on our walks to be sure I won’t get shot.

 

A friend came over a few months ago to help us burn old brush in our yard. She sprinkled gasoline all over and proudly granted me the privilege of lighting the match. What? Get me outta here! Arsonists pour gasoline to burn down a house!

 

We used to have a skunk under the house. A skunk! How do to get rid of a skunk? We were told to play loud music on the radio when we were gone. We found a rap radio station, and it did leave.  The skunk probably would have liked country music!

 

Everybody is everybody else’s cousin. And just what is a pig pickin’ anyway?

 

But after three years here full time, I am starting to get into the groove. I do have a pickup truck, though it doesn’t have a gun rack. (I guess Teslas don’t count.) Sometimes I wear a camouflage hat passed out at a parade. And those parades are so neat—small-town pride and kids diving for candy.

 

I never saw fireflies as a kid. And there were too many lights to see a moon shadow. What are those little lights in the sky? Oh, stars!

 

People here are so friendly! If you have dinner, they cook ridiculous amounts of food to show their love. “Y’all come back, hear?”

 

Unlike in the city, you run across people you know all the time. They’ll stay and talk—well, sometimes endlessly.

 

So y’all, I’m staying. Well, “…the Good Lord willing and the creeks don’t rise.”